216 PROBLEMS OF HUMAN EVOLUTION 



II 



NATURAL SELECTION AMONG CIVILISED MEN 



Natural Natural Selection is still at work, though every effort is made 

 ll to arrest * ts operation. As in the animal kingdom generally, it 

 work acts mainly upon the young, a fact which comes out very clearly 

 from the study of the mortality tables. In 1897 the mortality of 

 infants under one year in London was 159 per looo births. This 

 was only slightly above the average, which for the ten years end- 

 ing with 1897 was 155*4. * Thus the eminent man of science 

 who looked around him and proclaimed that he saw no 

 struggle for existence going on, did not see beneath the 

 surface. Mentioning by name several men of note, he asked : 

 " How can they be said to be struggling for existence ? " Quite 

 true, on those who win easily there is little of the dust of conflict 

 to be seen. That goes without saying, and he only stated a 

 truism. It would be easy to point to thousands of men whom 

 it would be ridiculous to describe as struggling for their lives. 

 The struggle for existence extends throughout the organic 

 world, and yet for years a giant of the forest stands unassailed 

 by anything beyond small irritating pests. And so to a less 

 extent in the animal world. The stress comes at certain 

 crises, and though throughout a man's life disease is on the 

 watch for a weakness in his armour, the most important of 

 these crises is the time of infancy. But the chance which an 

 infant has of surviving does not depend entirely on his 

 physical strength. It depends very largely on the wealth and 

 social position of the parents. Among the classes who have 

 ample means and some amount of education, the infant death- 

 rate is far less. If the Registrar-General published reports of 

 the rate among the various social classes, very interesting facts 

 would be brought to light. At Copenhagen, it seems, this has 

 been done. And there we learn the gross fertility is higher in 

 the artisan than in the professional class, but the net fertility 



1 See the Annual Summary of births and deaths in London for 1897, page 33. 



